Song
by Wolfish Oro
Summary: My father said he caught my mother with a song." J/S, but from a different character's perspective.


Song

* * *

My father always told me that he'd caught my mother with a song.

I'd never understood that, and when I asked Uncle Toby, he didn't, either. Uncle Toby always said, "If they wanted us to know, your parents would tell you. Mind your buisness, Danny."

But I really _couldn't_, because Mom would tell me stories before bedtime, many of them focusing on the adventures of a human girl named Sarah and the Goblin King who liked to hassle her. I had asked her, sometimes, why she had put up with the King if all he was doing was being a nuisance. She'd laugh and sing me to sleep, and my father would cross his arms and huff. It took me two years to realize that the girl was my mother, and the Goblin King in her tales was my father, and not people from the dusty history books that my father keeps in his library.

So I couldn't mind my own buisness here, since that was one of the stories my mother obviously hadn't told me. But when I finally realized there was a meaning to my father's words-- _I caught your mother with a song_-- I was thirteen, nearly fourteen, far too old to ask my mother for bedtime stories.

But my curiosity ran deeper than that. I could believe my father had resorted to capturing my mother-- they were a wild pair, laughing together one minute and arguing the next; my mother's temper was just as quick as my father's. Often, though, one would break the rising tension by grinning suddenly, and a wry comment would send them both into snickers. It was a game of give and take between them, and conflicts were solved as often as not through outwitting one another than through actual compromise. Blessedly, I had inherited their wit-- my parents were well known for being as mischievious as their subjects, and they dragged me into their trick wars and sarcastic battles whenever I felt strongly enough to take a side.

So that, I could understand. I never saw how my father managed to convince my mother to put up with him long enough to be married. From what Uncle Didymus tells me, my parents were an unholy terror while courting.

But the song bit... Both of my parents were good singers, another trait they passed to me. My mother's lullabies were so sweet, you'd have good dreams for a month after hearing one. My father's songs were mostly sung stories or spells, to amuse the Goblins or to control the Labyrinth. Where my mother's songs were soft and dulcet, my father's songs were wild and fast-paced.

Neither of these types of songs sounded like entrapping music, and that just deepened the mystery of my father's words.

When I finally saw them-- finally understood-- it was by chance, for I had feigned illness to get out of my classes that afternoon to hide in the huge oak tree growing in the gardens. I had used my magic to create a platform, close to the trunk and resting between three sturdy branches, hidden even in the winter when the oak shed its leaves, and it was here that I saw them and the meaning became clear.

I was tucked away in my tree, reading, when the melody floated upwards. I recognized the voice to be my father's, but I didn't understand-- this wasn't one of my father's feral, catchy tunes but a slower song, nearly as soft as one of my mother's. I peeked over the side of the platform to watch my parents dance together under the tree, my father crooning the song in my mother's ear as they swayed to music only they could hear.

Part of the reason I finally understood was that my parents had just been in the middle of a particularly bad arguement, one that had none of the joking airs that their disagreements usually had. This, then, was what my father meant by "caught"-- calmed. It made sense, now.

I asked him at lunch if I was right. Father just winked at me and asked me to pass the salt.

* * *

Oro: I am a little... iffy about this one. It's been in my head for ages and there's no pretense at humor, just a subtle sort of romance. Since I've never written anything like this, I don't know how good it is, but I like it, so... (shrugs) I don't own Jareth, Sarah, Toby, Didymus, or the Labyrinth. Danny is my own creation and he may or may not be show up in later works. 

Expect something funny later. I have it planned, just need to get it typed...


End file.
